Pulling hard for a Wild playoff win

The tickets are the hottest item in town. The TV ratings are setting records. The freshly printed Northwest Division Champion T-shirts are on the racks.

The Minnesota Wild is back in the playoffs, starting tonight in St. Paul, and the signs of excitement are undeniable in a state that's been waiting a while to watch a winner.

The last time one of the "big four" pro sports teams in town played host to a playoff game, it was almost exactly a year ago -- and it was the same home team. Fans thirsty for victories are expected to pack the Xcel Energy Center and the bars, particularly those closest to the arena.

"I think more so in the playoffs, just like the players are geared up, the fans are, too," said Tom Reid, a Wild radio analyst whose Hockey City Pub is two blocks from Xcel Energy Center. "They come in well before the game starts. They want to be part of where the action is, even if they don't have tickets."

A visit to the Hockey Lodge team store in the main lobby at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday afternoon revealed fresh racks of division championship T-shirts and rows of Stanley Cup Playoff hats.

"Sales have been brisk and calls and e-mails are coming into the Hockey Lodge at record levels," said Bill Robertson, Wild vice president of communications and broadcasting, who declined to give specific merchandise information.

The Wild, which joined the NHL for the 2000-'01 season, experienced its highest year-to-year increase in ratings for both over-the-air and cable regular-season telecasts. The numbers are certain to grow in the playoffs.

Last season, the Wild's opening playoff game at Anaheim had a 7.9 rating and 18 share -- and that was for a less-than-favorable 9:30 p.m. start. "I would say we hope to see a significant increase in the playoffs as we have seen in past years for the Wild," Robertson said.

Good seats available

A day before the game, there were tickets to be had from several outlets, including eBay and Craigslist. In the tickets for sale section of Minneapolis/St. Paul Craigslist on Tuesday afternoon, 37 of the first 50 entries were people selling Wild tickets. Some of them were clearly ticket brokers; others, such as Nancy Fischer of Maple Grove, were fans with extras trying to make back some money already spent.

Fischer's husband, Steve, will take their three hockey-playing kids -- led by Hailey, 14, the oldest and the one always decked out in Wild garb -- to tonight's game. On Friday, the family will trade pucks for profit.

Fischer said the bill for four tickets to each of eight playoff games -- four apiece in rounds 1 and 2 -- was $2,560. That's on top of the $10,000-plus already spent on season tickets.

During the regular season, Fischer said the family routinely sells tickets it can't use on Craigslist for face value. But with a big playoff tab staring them in the face, the $550 offer the family received for four tickets to Friday's Game 2 -- a profit of roughly $250 -- looks pretty nice.

The Fischer family might be lucky to get that much. Another Craigslist seller who routinely sells tickets above face value groused that a pair of prime lower-level tickets that fetched $450 in last year's playoffs could go for as little as $250 this year. That seller blamed the legalization of scalping, which went into effect in August, for creating an oversaturation in the resale market.

John Maher, the Wild's VP of brand marketing, disputed the idea that tickets were being bought up by brokers and pointed to the estimated 300 fans who camped out to get playoff tickets Saturday morning as an example of the true spirit of Wild fans.

"I think our season-ticket holders are real fans," Maher said.

Indeed, the Fischer family made sure they sold to another family instead of a broker. And tonight, much like a good portion of the State of Hockey, they'll be all about the Wild.

"We just love our hockey," Nancy Fischer said.

Staff writer Judd Zulgad contributed to this report.